Victimology (Routledge Revivals)

The Victim and the Criminal Justice Process

Sandra Walklate

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136750519
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1989, this book provides a comprehensive introduction to the study of the victims of crime and the way in which they are treated in society generally, and in the criminal justice process in particular. The study of victims of crime is important to academics, the wider community of policy initiation and implementation, and to the political arena. Sandra Walklate examines the nature of this interest, and the contributions of victim-related research and criminal victimization surveys, in order to be able to provide the reader with a critical assessment of the issues involved. This book will be of interest to students of criminology, sociology, social policy and law, as well as victim support workers, probation officers, social workers, police officers and all those interested in the plight of victims of crime.

1

Key concepts in victimology: an overview

Introduction

The main purpose of this chapter is to equip the reader with an overall appreciation of the concepts which have informed the work of those who have addressed the question of the victim of crime. In so doing it is necessarily going to be selective in the material presented but it is hoped that that selection will equip the reader with enough knowledge to address these concepts critically. An attempt will be made to pay some attention to the historical development of victimological work, beginning with the ideas of Von Hentig and Mendelsohn and ending by addressing the current work which has been informed by interest in the victim. In this way it is hoped to contextualize the empirical findings of the criminal victimization research; the focus of Chapter 2. We shall begin by examining early victimological work which was concerned to construct victim typologies.

Victim typologies

The usual place with which to begin an overview of victimology is with the work of Von Hentig, and this overview is no exception. Von Hentig’s book The Criminal and his Victim (1948) was in fact intended as a textbook in criminology. In the last chapter of this book he considers some of the ways in which the victim plays a role in the perpetration of a crime. He states that:

Experience tells us that … relationships between perpetrator and victim are much more intricate than the rough distinctions of criminal law. Here are two human beings. As soon as they draw near to one another, male or female, young or old, rich or poor, ugly or attractive – a wide range of interactions, repulsions as well as attractions, is set in motion. What the law does is to watch the one who acts and the one who is acted upon. By this external criterion, subject and object, a perpetrator and a victim are distinguished. In sociological and psychological quality the situation may be completely different. It may happen that the two distinct categories merge. There are cases in which they are reversed and in the long chain of causative forces the victim assumes the role of determinant. (von Hentig, 1948, pp. 383–4, quoted by Sparks, 1982, pp. 1920)

This rather lengthy quote more than adequately encapsulates the concerns which von Hentig was interested in. His approach focused on the role of the victim in the perpetration of a criminal event. In so doing he was primarily interested in how the victim may contribute to the creation of a crime. In pursuing this interest he created thirteen classes of victim: the young, the female, the old, the mentally defective, immigrants, those belonging to ‘minorities’, ‘dull normals’, the depressed, the acquisitive, the wanton, the lonesome and heartbroken, the tormentor and the ‘fighting’ victim (see von Hentig, 1948, last chapter). These classes refer to psychological as well as sociological variables which can be related to situations or persons. There is no necessary inference that von Hentig is suggesting some people are born victims. There are perhaps clearer tendencies within his work towards a notion of ‘victim proneness’: that some people and some situations are more likely to constitute the circumstances in which victimization occurs. (This theme will be returned to.) It must be noted that this typology, and the one which follows, were both speculative. They were not constructed on the basis of empirical evidence, unlike some of the work to be discussed, but were probably intended as a spur to further research.

Mendelsohn’s typology (quoted in Schafer, 1976, p. 154) classifies victims with respect to their culpability for a crime. By this Mendelsohn appears to be referring to the extent to which the victim made a ‘guilty contribution to the crime’ (ibid.). This notion of culpability adds some weight to the extent to which the victim contributes to the perpetration of crime. It is a notion which moves away from simply describing the variables which contribute to a situation, to, by implication, assigning responsibility for the occurrence of an event. This notion of making victims responsible, to whatever extent, for their own victimization, ‘blaming the victim’, has been a considerably problematic one for victimology as will be seen below. (It is likely that the legal background from which Mendelsohn came led him to using this term without, perhaps, appreciating the consequences it might have outside the legal setting.)

Mendelsohn had six categories, ranging from the ‘completely innocent’ (such as young children) to the ‘most guilty victim’ (such as the aggressor who is subsequently killed). As later chapters will illustrate, whilst problematic, this notion of culpability, or the assignation of guilt and innocence, is a powerful concept in explanations of, particularly violent, criminal incidents. It takes on a particularly powerful and emotive form in the concept of ‘victim precipitation’.

Victim precipitation

The concept of ‘victim precipitation’ was formulated most precisely by Wolfgang (1958) in his book Patterns in Criminal Homicide. He offers this definition of the concept:

The term victim precipitation is applied to those criminal homicides in which the victim is a direct, positive precipitator in the crime. The role of the victim is characterised by his having been the first in the homicide drama to use physical force directed against his subsequent slayer. The victim precipitated cases are those in which the victim was the first to show and use a deadly weapon, to strike a blow in altercation – in short, the first to commence the interplay of resort to physical violence. (Quoted by Fattah, 1979, p. 202)

Using this definition Wolfgang classified 26 per cent of the cases of criminal homicide he studied from police records as being victim precipitated. He concluded his study by arguing that his evidence supported the view postulated by von Hentig that, in some instances, the victim was the determinant of criminal events.

Several researchers subsequently subjected Wolfgang’s notion of victim precipitation to further empirical investigation in cases of homicide. Others attempted to apply the concept to other crimes involving interpersonal violence. Hindelang, Gottfredson and Garofalo (1978) suggest from their survey results that the rate of injury was much greater for victims who used force as a ‘self-protective’ measure than for those who did not and that the younger people and males were most likely to do this. They do not go on to give the notion of victim precipitation any great prominence in their theorizing, however. Normandeau (1968) changed the concept somewhat so that it could be applied to the crime of robbery. He argued that some victims created, through their own behaviour, ‘temptation-opportunity situations’ (ibid., p. 110) which precipitated the crime. In addition there have been attempts made to use this concept in the context of rape.

Amir’s study of rape developed the notion of victim-precipitation in a very broad fashion:

the victim actually – or so it was interpreted by the offender – agreed to sexual relations but retracted … or did not resist strongly enough when the suggestion was made by the offender. The term also applies to cases in which the victim enters vulnerable situations charged sexually. (Amir, 1971, p. 262 quoted by Morris, 1987, p. 173)

Using this broad definition, Amir could identify only 19 per cent of his sample of cases known to the police as being victim-precipitated. Apart from the empirical difficulties of this study, relying on officially recorded reports of rape, feminists have been particularly concerned to point out the way in which the notion of victim precipitation builds on the commonly held view that the victim of rape must have ‘asked for it’.

There are considerable dangers inherent in giving academic legitimacy to such a view which, it has been well established, carries considerable weight from the police handling of rape, through to the cases which reach the courts (there translated as ‘contributory negligence’, see Jeffreys and Radford, 1984). This culminates in the impact such a view has on women who have been raped. They blame themselves. Which is hardly surprising, since everyone else has blamed them too. These dangers stem from translating a fairly precisely formulated concept focused on criminal homicide to a much more broadly and loosely defined notion applied to rape. Fattah (1979) argues that the fact that the concept may have been poorly formulated and loosely operationalized does not offer grounds for dismissing its validity. He suggests that the concept, as originally formulated by Wolfgang (1958), is sound. He goes on to suggest that the concept itself meets a need to understand, dynamically, why a particular crime occurred, in a particular context against a particular victim.

Whilst appealing for greater clarity of definition in the use of the concept, Fattah (1979) is also aware that some of the problems associated with the use of this concept derive from the way in which terms such as ‘guilt’ and ‘culpability’ have been used in victimological writing. (See Mendelsohn, for example above.) Fattah states:

The use of explanatory concepts such as victim-precipitated, victim-facilitated, victim-initiated, victim-induced, and victim-invited criminality to describe the victim’s role in the causative process should in no way be interpreted as an attempt on the part of the social scientist to blame the victim or to hold him responsible for the crime. (Fattah, 1979, p. 202.)

In some senses this defence of victim precipitation is couched in very traditional social scientific terms of value freedom. Social scientists are not to be held responsible for the way in which others might read the work they produce. In its own terms such a defence is perfectly logical. Fortunately, an increasing number of social scientists, many of them feminists, have found it impossible to engage in the issues pertinent to social science without being cognisant of the way in which the social scientific enterprise displays a particular, male-dominated way of viewing the world. They have thus striven to develop conceptual frameworks more in keeping with a social science which embraces value commitment rather than value freedom; that is, a commitment to recognize the hidden assumptions underpinning the construction of theory and practice which do not relate to women’s experiences but only to men’s. In this way concepts such as victim precipitation are severely criticized for the way in which they lead to blaming the victim whether that was the intention or not. That most of those who would reject such a concept in the context of rape, in particular, are also feminists is, of course, no accident. That others still regard the concept as having some value will be illustrated later in this chapter and will also be a recurring theme of subsequent chapters.

There is, however, a further problem with the concept of victim precipitation, particularly associated with Fattah’s (1979) defence of it. If its value lies in its ability to explain why this particular victim was victimized in these particular circumstances, then, in these terms, it does not take the explanatory potential of victimology very far. Victimology remains confined to offering explanations of individual events by reference to their individual precipitating characteristics. It cannot, by relying on this concept, offer explanations of recurring patterns of victimization.

The next key concept to be considered here takes as its frame of reference personal crime; but attempts to develop a conceptual framework with which to understand such patternings. This is the notion of lifestyle.

Lifestyle and victimization

Hindelang, Gottfredson and Garofalo (1978) constitute the main proponents of the lifestyle approach to victimization. This concept is intended to relate a series of hypotheses concerning the nature of personal victimization. A series of hypotheses, it is argued, are grounded in victimization data. Garofalo (1986) points to the similarities of this approach to that of Cohen and Felson (1979) who proposed a ‘routine activity’ approach to victimization. The main focus of attention will be directed here, however, to the work of Hindelang, Gottfredson and Garofalo.

The proponents of the lifestyle approach are keen to point out that they are presenting a model of personal victimization in which the concept of lifestyle refers to ‘routine daily activities, both vocational activities (work, school, keeping house, etc.) and leisure activities’ (Hindelang, Gottfredson and Garofalo, 1978, p. 241). The model proposes that any individual is constrained by role expectations and structural characteristics, the nature of which will be connected to demographic variables: age, sex, race, etc. Individuals adapt to these constraints and their adaptations are reflected in their daily routines; lifestyle. There is a direct link, the proponents argue, between an individual’s routine daily activities and exposure to high-risk victimization situations. Personal victimization follows from such high-risk exposure. (For a more detailed discussion of these assumptions and the concept of lifestyle, see ibid., pp. 241–50.) For personal victimization to occur, it is argued that several factors must come together:

First, the prime actors – the offender and the victim – must have occasion to intersect in time and space. Second, some source of dispute or claim must arise between the actors in which the victim is perceived by the offender as an appropriate object of the victimization. Third, the offender must be willing and able to threaten or use force (or stealth) in order to achieve the desired end. Fourth, the circumstances must be such that the offender views it as advantageous to use or threaten force (or stealth) to achieve the desired end. The probability of these conditions being met is related to the life circumstances of members of society. (ibid., p. 250)

This general picture of the conditions to be met for a personal victimization to occur is detailed by eight propositions. At the risk of boring the reader, there is some value in listing these propositions.

(1) The probability of suffering a personal victimization is directly related to the amount of time that a person spends in public places (e.g. on the street, in parks, etc.) and particularly in public places at night.

(2) The probability of being in public places, particularly at night, varies as a function of lifestyle.

(3) Social contacts and interactions occur disproportionately among individuals who share similar lifestyles.

(4) An individual’s chances of personal victimization are dependent upon the extent to which the individual shares demographic characteristics with offenders.

(5) The proportion of time an individual spends among non-family members varies as a function of lifestyle.

(6) The probability of personal victimization, particularly personal theft, increases as a function of the proportion of time that an individual spends among non-family members.

(7) Variations in lifestyle are associated with variations in the ability of individuals to isolate themselves from persons with offender characteristics.

(8) Variations in lifestyle are associated with variations in the convenience, the desirability and the vincibility of a person as a target for personal victimizations.
(For a fuller discussion of each of these propositions see ibid., pp. 250–66.)

Before examining in detail the relative strengths and weaknesses of these propositions, it may be of value to consider what one of the proponents of the model sees as the major weaknesses of the model and how they might be addressed.

Garofalo (1986) suggests three main weaknesses in the original lifestyle model. First, that the lifestyle concept suggests hypotheses which are true by definition and therefore trivial. Someone who does not go out cannot be exposed to street crime and is therefore very unlikely to be a victim of such an incident. Garofalo suggests two responses to this weakness. The first involves employing a distinction made by Gottfredson (1981) between absolute exposure to risk and probabilistic exposure to risk. The first of these is necessary for a victimization to occur; there must be some form of contact between a person (or property) and an offender for a victimizing incident to take place. However, such events do not happen every time a person (or property) comes into contact with an offender. Other factors must be present for the incident to happen at a given place and given time. This is probabilistic exposure. It is the process of this probabilistic exposure that the concept of lifestyle can elucidate. The second response, he suggests, is to use the lifestyle concept as a way of assessing levels of risk which are above or below the average norm for society, suggesting the work of Smith (1982) as an illustration of this approach.

The second criticism addressed by Garofalo (1986) suggests that the lifestyle concept is so vague as to be unfalsifiable. Garofalo’s answer to this criticism is less than convincing. He recommends that the concept be more rigorously defined and that adequate theory testing take place in the context of victimization surveys. The problem here is how it might be possible to operationalize the concept of lifestyle so that it avoids being vague and yet at the same time is meaningful. Questions can be, and have been, asked concerning drinking habits and use of public transport, for example, and subsequently related to chances of victimization; but do questions such as these relay anything meaningful with respect to lifestyle? In other words, are daily or weekly routine activities necessarily the complete lifestyle picture? (This comment is developed more fully below.)

The third criticism he addresses suggests that the lifestyle approach is inadequate for policy initiatives. It is not possible to argue convincingly that people should change their lifestyles. (Though some do; see Chapter 7.) Garofalo lists a number of ways in which public policy impinges upon lifestyle and subsequently would feed into the lifestyle-exposure model (ibid., pp. 151–2).

The main modifications suggested by Garofalo in the light of these criticisms of the lifestyle model include heightening the way in which structural constraints are related to the associations people make which may not be necessarily mediated by lifestyle. This requires making a closer examination of the way in which economic variables, for example, are related to housing opportunities which may relate to associations and risk. He also includes consideration of ‘reactions to crime’ – fear, evaluation of risk, beliefs about crime – as being a further dimension to appreciating lifestyle and exposure. Finally he suggests that two factors, target attractiveness and personal idiosyncrasies, which are unrelated to lifestyle, need to be placed somewhere in the equation which culminates in a victimizing event.

So, whilst Garofalo’s (1986) modifications to the lifestyle model may or may not meet the criticisms he considers have been made of it, the question as yet unanswered is what do we make of this type of empirically grounded theoretical approach to the study of victimization? Its first strength lies in the fact that it is an empirically grounded approach. Its concepts and propositions are derived from data and can be used to inform further data-gathering processes. This statement is not intended as an empty comment. It is...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Key concepts in victimology: an overview
• 2 Documenting victimization
• 3 The victimization of children
• 4 Corporate victimization
• 5 Victims and the criminal justice process
• 6 Voluntary organizations and victim support
• 7 Victims, crime prevention and the community
• Conclusion
• References
• Index